Everyone seems to talk about "Oh, this heatsink is your best value". I don't mind spending the money to buy a water cooling setup to silence things, but I'm scared of leaks. Heatsinks in comparison seem very cheap. However, which one is the best performer, not the best value?

I'm confused by all the reviews, seems like there are many options. For value, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo seems clearly cheap for what it does. However, I got one and compared it with another heatsink I could also buy locally, the Thermaltech Frio (but no reviews of this one on SPCR though?). The Frio is clearly bigger, heavier, and seems like it would outperform a Hyper 212 Evo hands down. But would it?

If there wasn't a budget, just the requirement it wouldn't block the ram, what heatsink would you suggest? I have Corsair high profile ram, which I don't want to replace as it's running nicely. I only have two sticks though, so the first slot is ok if it's blocked as I don't have ram in it. I read some posts on the forum, and I see the Scyth Mugen 4 is being recommended. I checked online and it's $45.99. I don't care about getting something because it's cheaper. I want it to perform.

What heatsink is good? I'm temped by the Frio as it seems solidly built, and mounts two fans. But I can't see any reviews to compare it to other heatsinks. I think two fans is worth it, as it seems to guarantee more airflow. I also want the heatsink setup as silent as possible, under load.

My processor is an 8 core 4ghz AMD, so it runs pretty hot when under a load.

Last edited by NetTechie on Mon Jan 13, 2014 12:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

For everything else: Even if the FRIO had 3 fans, that does tell you nothing about actual cooling performance nor does it tell you something about the noise this cooler will make while performing. For further reading check out our recommended heatsink section.

And finally, if you buy a 14000$ car brand new and compare it to a equally new 25000$ car, who will be on top????

For everything else: Even if the FRIO had 3 fans, that does tell you nothing about actual cooling performance nor does it tell you something about the noise this cooler will make while performing. For further reading check out our recommended heatsink section.

I fan mod all my heatsinks, at least historically, to lower air flow lower noise fans. I wouldn't have installed a Frio with the stock fans, not at 105cfm or whatever they are. I'm wondering more with a reference fan, if it would perform worse. Like the Nexus used on reviews.

I mean, no budget, as in no limit to spending.Edit: Revised post title to cost not a consideration.

Sorry, I was reading in the subway, on small screen. Did not catch the idea...

So, you are looking for the "best performance at any price" = the most silent at any price. Correct?

Quote:

I see the Scyth Mugen 4 is being recommended. I checked online and it's $45.99. I don't care about getting something because it's cheaper. I want it to perform.

It's one of the recommended, around the forum. Witht he HR-02 Macho. http://www.silentpcreview.com/Thermalright_HR-02_Macho The Macho shone even brighter with two fans, edging out most of the dual 140 mm fan coolers[...]The 161 mm height allows installation in most standard sized towers. It also doesn't interfere with the system memory (typically a problem for DIMMs with tall heatspreaders) because some of its mass is cleverly shifted toward the opposite side

It might look "cheap" for you, but it's a good one from the review, from the users.I am not sure there is a need to put $100, if this one is enough and silent.

The only remaining question: "can it handle your CPU?".

Thermaltake Frio with 2 fans.Are we talking about silence or cooling capacity?

Thermaltake Frio with 2 fans.Are we talking about silence or cooling capacity?

I know it has a lot more mass, so it must cool better than a smaller heatsink. But if we are comparing it to the Macho HR-02 and Scyth Mugen 4, I doubt it would compare. I just happen to be able to get it locally.

My question on a Frio would be if you put it on the same processor as say Thermalright heatsink, and used the same fan, as in review comparisons, if it would work well. Unfortunately it hasn't been reviewed, most likely because they bundle fans with it. All the Thermalright heatsinks I ever got never had a fan, so it seems almost unfair not to compare them just because the manufacturer decided to bundle a fan with it that sounds like a hurricane. But oh well. I guess nobody cares just because it has a $12 fan bundled that isn't silent.

I wanted to know how it would compare with say a bigger HR-22 for example.

I mean, no budget, as in no limit to spending.Edit: Revised post title to cost not a consideration.

Sorry, I was reading in the subway, on small screen. Did not catch the idea...

So, you are looking for the "best performance at any price" = the most silent at any price. Correct?

Correct.

thierry. wrote:

The Macho shone even brighter with two fans, edging out most of the dual 140 mm fan coolers [...]The 161 mm height allows installation in most standard sized towers. It also doesn't interfere with the system memory (typically a problem for DIMMs with tall heatspreaders) because some of its mass is cleverly shifted toward the opposite side

It might look "cheap" for you, but it's a good one from the review, from the users.I am not sure there is a need to put $100, if this one is enough and silent.

Nice to mention the dual fan thing... it doesn't come with a way to mount dual fans... how does a person solve that? Edit: There is a kit here.

My case will be a Silverstone FT02. So I think it has decent clearances for the heatsink.

thierry. wrote:

The only remaining question: "can it handle your CPU?".

As it stands I don't know, I game, and it sure heats up my 8 core 4ghz AMD. I don't think I could have too much cooling for it, even though I don't have any plans to overclock. At 65c it starts causing lockups, so it has to stay cool. I want it as silent as possible.

Last edited by NetTechie on Mon Jan 13, 2014 1:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

As it stands I don't know, I game, and it sure heats up my 8 core 4ghz AMD. I don't think I could have too much cooling for it, even though I don't have any plans to overclock. At 65c it starts causing lockups, so it has to stay cool. I want it as silent as possible.

Power consumption or a hint a wattage/TDP might come handy here.... don't keep us guessing, provide just a tad little more info.

And the case and PSU you do have might give us some more clues as to how airflow and such are handled beside your CPU cooler.E.G. If you would have no case fans at all, the choice of cooler won't change a thing for your system. Additional GPU around, too?

As it stands I don't know, I game, and it sure heats up my 8 core 4ghz AMD. I don't think I could have too much cooling for it, even though I don't have any plans to overclock. At 65c it starts causing lockups, so it has to stay cool. I want it as silent as possible.

Power consumption or a hint a wattage/TDP might come handy here.... don't keep us guessing, provide just a tad little more info.

And the case and PSU you do have might give us some more clues as to how airflow and such are handled beside your CPU cooler.E.G. If you would have no case fans at all, the choice of cooler won't change a thing for your system. Additional GPU around, too?

Main GPU is a Radeon 7970 in the MSI version using Twin Frozr fans which runs silent at idle. I have the Radeon hooked to an Accell Displayport MST hub, so it runs six dispalys off of it when not gaming. I don't know if this effects the cards overall wattage or not. Give it a game to chew on and the fan spins up to maximum, and is loud. I haven't figured out how to solve that yet. I was thinking of water cooling, but the risk of leaks has stopped me.

I don't know the power consumption of the system, but it is has two ATI FirePro 2460's installed. They generate a LOT of heat (60-70c at idle), and are passively cooled. I'm looking to add one more passively cooled FirePro 2270 as well, but we'll see if I need it. These cards are supposed to be low wattage, at less than 20 watts each at maximum power. Some say they run at 13 watts typically.

I run two solid state samsung 120gb hard drives in a RAID, so not much noise there.

Case is going to be a Silverstone FT02, so the PSU will get air from the side vent into the case, so it doesn't effect case airflow.

Case fans will be the three 180mm fans tuned down to near silent, with a fan controller. Or that's the plan. I'm looking at the Scythe fan controllers, that display RPM, so I can fine tune it. Plus the 120mm exaust fan as well, which I plan to replace with a lower flow fan I have which I'd probably run at around 1000rpm.

Main GPU is a Radeon 7970 in the MSI version using Twin Frozr fans which runs silent at idle. Give it a game to chew on and it is loud. I haven't figured out how to solve that yet. I was thinking of water cooling, but the risk of leaks has stopped me.

That can't be solved completly, even if using watercooling, if more heat is generated, noise cranks up. The MSI is regarded as a decent modell with a top cooler, as long as it is silent while not gaming, your fine imho.

NetTechie wrote:

I don't know the power consumption of the system, but it is has two ATI FirePro 2460's installed. They generate a LOT of heat (60-70c at idle), and are passively cooled. I'm looking to add one more passively cooled FirePro 2270 as well, but we'll see if I need it.

So lots of additional heat sources. Your case handles air flow extremly well. But to cool your passive ATI's you'll need some air flow anyhow, so no-noise computing is out of reach here. RPMs of your case fans will strongly depend on the necessary cooling throughput needed to keep your passive FirePros in check.

If this was my system, I'd do a little fan-fu and would try to find a setting which does not disturb while idling and is still strong enough to cope with load situations. That's mainly because i am not fond of automatisms, which can and will fail sometime, cooking my hardware and potentially damaging everything.

So your caught between hammer and anvil, as long as you want your (powerconsuming) hardware to perform, you have to supply sufficient (and thus somehow noisy) cooling. Running an AMD-CPU does not help regarding heat and power consumption, heat-wise you'd be far better of with any modern Intel CPU.

But to cool your passive ATI's you'll need some air flow anyhow, so no-noise computing is out of reach here. RPMs of your case fans will strongly depend on the necessary cooling throughput needed to keep your passive FirePros in check.

The firepro cards are in my current case, and honestly they can get as hot as they want I think... so I'm just gonna watch them idle at 70c and not care. The case I have it in now has no case fans except the exhaust fan running at 1000rpm. Pretty much silent. I'm changing cases because I want the processor to run cooler. It is the only thing that needs cooling at this point I think. When I game it gets hot, with the current fans doing 71cfm through a Corsair H60.

I'm waiting for the Silverstone FT02 case to come, it should be here by Friday I think. I want to order the heatsink so it comes when my case gets here, but first I have to figure out which one to buy . I'm also hoping the hole in the case matches the motherboard CPU mount, so I can add the heatsink after installing the motherboard rather than before, to reduce risk of damaging the motherboard. A perk of the new case, if it aligns.

Last edited by NetTechie on Mon Jan 13, 2014 2:30 am, edited 2 times in total.

[...] Running an AMD-CPU does not help regarding heat and power consumption, heat-wise you'd be far better of with any modern Intel CPU.

Wow, I didn't know that. Too late now. I know one thing, it gets unreliable at 65c or so, which seems a lot lower than intel CPU's. I don't care how hot stuff gets if it works, but in this case it wont. It has to stay cool.

The heatsinks I would have liked to use are the big ones with two grilles and fans in between, but unfortunately I got high profile ram with heatsinks on them so I can't fit a big cooler. I love the ram, works great, but it blocks these bigger coolers.

It looks like my only other option would be a dual fan HR-22, for similar performance. How I would mount two fans on it I don't know, as I don't see fan brackets for the second fan available.

Edit: Ok, I ordered an HR-22. Seems like the best heatsink made by Thermalright, and I've always used Thermalright heatsinks in my systems.

I think there is a very simple answer to you question:If you want a high quality heatsink that will last plenty of builds with excellent fans look no further then Thermalright or Noctua.

If you are worried about ram clearance go with the slim noctua coolers: NH-U14S or NH-U12S. They will provide similar cooling, maybe a bit more from U14S but probably only noticeable if CPU is overclocked. Make sure that you orient the heatsink and Fan to blow upwards in the case since you are using a FT02.

The only complaint people have about noctua is the price which you have clearly stated is not important.

Thanks for your input. I think the Thermalright HR-22 would outperform the Nactua NH-U14S, at low fan speeds. I hope the HR-22 fits with my ram, it looks like it should. If it blocks one ram slot that's okay though, as I'm only using two sticks.

I would have liked to try a Nactua NH-D14, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work with my ram.

Here's a sample picture of how it fit someone's system, clearly blocking two sticks of ram if they were higher profile.

Last edited by NetTechie on Mon Jan 13, 2014 3:26 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Thanks for your input. I think the Thermalright HR-22 would outperform the Nactua NH-U14S, at low fan speeds. I hope the HR-22 fits with my ram, it looks like it should. If it blocks one ram slot that's okay though, as I'm only using two sticks.

Paired with one of our reference 140 mm fans, the HR-22 lands a top three spot, just behind the Noctua NH-U14S. Given its size and price, we wouldn't expect any less, though it's notable that the smaller and cheaper HR-02 trailed by about 1°C.

If its going to be a single fan setup, i would take the U14S over the HR22, its cheaper and will net you better temps on single fan, and i dont think its possible to install two fans on the HR22 on the consumer motherboards. The HR22 is good at one thing, not taking your first PCIe slot, and even then the HR02 Macho doesn't take the first PCI slot, so half price and almost the same performance. The HR22 is a good cooler, just overpriced for what it offer, they need to drop it to $80 at least and include a fan.

All years we see more and more coolers, this year we might see the successor of the NH-D14, which is more a revision in terms of fans (using the same as U14S) and a revision to the lower fins to accommodate memory on the LGA2011 mobos. And a revision is coming of the Thermlaright Siver Arrow SBE, which is mostly the adoption of the asymmetrical design of the HR22, so it doesn't take your first PCIe, being 165mm wide and using huge fans like TY150, its a welcome change. Either of the two is what im looking forward for Haswell E LGA2011 build.

I do believe I can fit two fans on the HR-22, in a FT02 case. There is a lot of room, at the top of the case above the edge of the motherboard. I'm a fan of push-pull, it seems to be a good system. I think if I have to remove the exhaust fan to make it fit, I will. Let the air leave the case passively without that fan. Because it's oriented upwards, the heat should rise up and out I think.

Now I wish I hadn't got the high profile ram, it would be simpler to pick a heatsink. But at the time I wasn't aware that these coolers use that space the heatsinks on my ram stick into. I have 16gb, so it would be rather expensive to replace it just to use a different heatsink.

The SPCR review of the HR-22 puts it just behind the Noctua U14S in single fan mode, and just ahead in dual fan mode. So effectively nothing in it. Either will work with ram with extended heatsinks. But from my local dealer the U14S is around 15% cheaper than the HR-22, so the question would be why pay that much more for no significant gain in performance. With a case with a 120mm exhaust fan I would not bother with dual CPU fans, but would replace the exhaust fan with the Noctua S12A PWM and run it in tandem with the CPU fan using the supplied Noctua Y cable. The cost of the U14S plus Noctua S12A would not amount to that much more than the HR-22 on its own, but it would probably give more effective results.

Last edited by lodestar on Mon Jan 13, 2014 4:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I do believe I can fit two fans on the HR-22, in a FT02 case. There is a lot of room, at the top of the case above the edge of the motherboard. I'm a fan of push-pull, it seems to be a good system. I think if I have to remove the exhaust fan to make it fit, I will. Let the air leave the case passively without that fan. Because it's oriented upwards, the heat should rise up and out I think.

Now I wish I hadn't got the high profile ram, it would be simpler to pick a heatsink. But at the time I wasn't aware that these coolers use that space the heatsinks on my ram stick into. I have 16gb, so it would be rather expensive to replace it just to use a different heatsink.

Well, now that I feel freed up to use one of the NH-D14's instead, with the ram coolers replaced, I still think having a big heatsink like the HR-22 would work better. It's so huge... it's gotta work better! lol. Especially if I can fit two fans on it.

Well, now that I feel freed up to use one of the NH-D14's instead, with the ram coolers replaced, I still think having a big heatsink like the HR-22 would work better. It's so huge... it's gotta work better! lol. Especially if I can fit two fans on it.

Thats what i still keep saying to myself, at least there will be two HR22 =)

Well, now that I feel freed up to use one of the NH-D14's instead, with the ram coolers replaced, I still think having a big heatsink like the HR-22 would work better. It's so huge... it's gotta work better! lol. Especially if I can fit two fans on it.

That's exactly the same reason for me to claim that green cars are always faster. They look so huge and fast... they gotta be faster. lol

It looks like the Silver Arrow SB-E will fit with my high profile ram, as long as I move the fan to the back of the heatsink and have them both pulling instead of a fan pushing on the front. It includes holes for a fan at the back, so it should be easy to just move the fan.

Ok, so due to the Silver Arrow SB-E blocking the first expansion slot, I think the Noctua NH-D14 is a safer investment, as I may upgrade my motherboard and when I do, the next one might use the first expansion slot.

Noctua is pushing the limits here for space, looks like the pins for the fan mount are actually touching the graphics card?! I guess you would need to wrap the wires in tape to be safe it didn't short something.

Looks like the tight fit on the first pci slot on Noctua NH-D14 is a risk. I'm thinking I'll replace my motherboard with a board using all the slots (I can't fit a sound card on my current board). If I do this, I'm gonna have to mess with the Noctua to get it to fit with that first pci slot. It's so tight the fan mounting wires hit the boards in the first pci slot on most of the pictures I've looked at. People stick something in there to make it work, but that's heat transfer to the other board. Can't be good.

Looks like the only option is either a Macho or a HR-22. The 22 did well on the tests for passive cooling, and I'd guess with the right fan setup it could outperform a Noctua NH-D14 potentially. I don't know, but it seems like a good design, and since the price is not a factor I don't see a reason to not try it.

I found some nice pictures of the HR-22 for size comparison to the Macho:

Looks only a tad larger, hence the modest performance gains I guess. Not much bigger sizewise. But if you want the best, without considering cost, this one might be it as it is a little better, if only by a tad.

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